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March 28, 2013

Coconut Mango Breakfast Cake

With the long weekend coming up, and the Easter holiday for those who celebrate it, this weekend should be a busy one filled with family and food! And for anyone who plans on doing some Spring baking this weekend, I've got a nice light breakfast cake recipe for you today.

This cake will also get you in the mood for warmer weather (which hopefully comes soon!) with its tropical notes of coconut and mango. Plus it has a fun twist - instead of adding fruit to the cake batter, mango slices are laid on top of the cake before baking, so that it comes out looking like rays of sunshine!

The idea for this recipe came from including cake, a blog that has tons of unique vegan creations (I have so many of her recipes bookmarked!). Her version was a coconut "sweetbread" with nectarines and cinnamon, which I changed to mango and ginger to complement the coconut flavour even more.

The original recipe was made with gluten-free self-raising flour, but since I wanted to stick with baking methods that I'm more experienced with, I made my cake with light spelt flour and added baking powder (sorry to my gluten-free readers!).

The cake itself was lightly sweetened with a hint of coconut, so the mango slices on top added a welcome burst of sweetness and kept the cake from being dry.

My favourite thing about this cake was the texture - it's soft and chewy, kind of like a cross between bread and coffee cake. I also found it to be really light tasting, which is why it's appropriate as a breakfast cake!

This is the type of breakfast that I couldn't get enough of - I tried just eating one piece, but found myself going back for another, and then another. So be careful if you make this with the intention of sharing it with others, because it might be difficult to share!

Preheat oven to 350°F and
prepare a baking sheet or a cake pan by spraying with cooking spray (I used a
9” round cake pan but a baking sheet should work fine).

In a large bowl, whisk
together the dry ingredients (flour through to coconut). In a separate bowl,
mix the mashed banana, agave, and vanilla. Combine the wet ingredients with the
dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are incorporated.
If the mixture is still too dry, add
almond milk 1 tablespoon at a time until there are no more dry parts (I used 1
tbsp).

Drop mixture onto the baking
sheet or cake pan and use a rubber spatula to spread it out into a circle about
6” wide and 1” thick. Sprinkle the coconut flakes on top. Carefully slice or peel off the skin of the
mango and cut one half lengthwise into thin slices (save the other half for
another use). Lay the mango slices on
top of the cake so that they join in the middle and point outwards (as shown in
the photos). Press them down lightly into the cake.

Bake in the preheated oven
for about 20 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned and a toothpick
inserted in the center comes out clean.

I could definitely see the whole thing being eaten in one sitting (by one person)! I love eating fruit for breakfast - usually its with yogurt but its nice to have a breakfast cake once in a while too!